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Friday News: The stench of desperation

Submitted by BlueNC on Fri, 11/02/2018 - 08:41

NC GOP'S "VOTER SHAMING" MAILERS GET UNDER THE SKIN OF SOME OF THEIR BASE: "In North Carolina, your personal voting history is a public record anyone can look up on the internet," the mailer says. "The chart below shows your voting record and the voting record of some of your neighbors." This did not sit well with Kelly Ducker, who got a mailer listing her husband and four neighbors, plus whether they voted in elections going back the last six years. Zachary Ducker wasn't even registered to vote in North Carolina during the years the card said he didn't vote. He was registered in Washington state. He voted there by absentee ballot because he was assigned to Fort Bragg and pulling three tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Now, I don't even want to vote for my party," said Kelly Ducker who, like her husband, is a registered Republican living in Harnett County.https://www.wral.com/nc-gop-sends-voter-shaming-cards/17962859/

NELSON DOLLAR ON THE HOT SEAT OVER WOMEN'S HEALTH ISSUES: “Nelson Dollar could not be further from the truth in claiming to be an advocate for women or women’s healthcare. In reality, as a senior member of the House, Dollar led the conservative majority in passing some of the most stringent anti-women’s health legislation in the country,” Paige Johnson, Planned Parenthood Votes! South Atlantic vice president of external affairs, said in a statement. The organization has endorsed Dollar’s Democratic opponent Julie von Haefen. Libertarian Robyn Pegram is also running in the district. EMILY’s List, a political action committee that supports Democratic women candidates, derided Dollar’s claim that he is a champion for women’s health. Dollar supported anti-abortion laws that included a 72-hour waiting period and mandatory ultrasounds, EMILY’s List said in a statement, and he funneled more than $1 million in state money to counseling clinics that discourage women from getting abortions.https://www.newsobserver.com/news/politics-government/article220859635.html

INSURANCE COMMISSIONER HANDS OVER $240,000 DONATION DUE TO FBI PROBE: Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey told WRAL-TV it was the FBI's idea to send in the $240,000 received in July from the state Republican Party. He said the agency told him he couldn't return it to the GOP because it "was part of their investigation." The handoff was neither part of any deal nor a federal government seizure, Causey told the station. "Our campaign is simply sending them a check," Causey said Wednesday. A FBI spokeswoman in Charlotte declined to comment Thursday. A state elections complaint filed Monday by a former county Democratic Party official alleges the money came from $1.5 million that Durham investment firm founder Greg Lindberg donated to the state GOP in the 18 months ending June 30. The complaint claims Lindberg gave the money to the Republican Party as way to bypass individual donation limits to campaign committees of $5,200 per election. Parties can give unlimited amounts to candidate committees.https://www.wral.com/insurance-commissioner-sending-challenged-donation-to-feds/17962094/

DUKE UNIVERSITY STILL BEING PLAGUED BY WHITE SUPREMACIST INCIDENTS: Police are investigating after a carved pumpkin featuring a swastika was found near a dorm building at Duke University overnight. The pumpkin was one of two racially charged incidents reported, according to the university. Sheets of paper with the words “it’s okay to be white” were found on a bench near Baldwin Auditorium on the school’s East Campus, said Michael Schoenfeld, the university’s vice president of public affairs and governmental relations. “We denounce these actions for what they are: cowardly acts of vandalism that are intended to intimidate, but instead remind us that we are, and will continue to be, a strong, inclusive community that stands up to hate and bigotry,” Schoenfeld wrote in an email to The News & Observer on Thursday. In August, someone scrawled a racial slur on a sign for the university’s Center for Black Culture. At the time, Schoenfeld described the slur as the N-word and said it was written in pen in 1-inch letters. The sign was repainted.https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article220956990.html

TRUMP'S RHETORIC MAY BE (FINALLY) TURNING THE STOMACHS OF SUBURBAN REPUBLICANS: Tuesday’s House election may turn on an equally significant and opposite force: a generational break with the Republican Party among educated, wealthier whites — especially women — who like the party’s pro-business policies but recoil from President Trump’s divisive language on race and gender. Rather than seeking to coax voters like these back into the Republican coalition, Mr. Trump appears to have all but written them off, spending the final days of the campaign delivering a scorching message about preoccupations like birthright citizenship and a migrant “invasion” from Mexico that these voters see through as alarmist. In Republican-leaning districts that include diverse populations or abut cities that do — from bulwarks of Sunbelt conservatism like Houston and Orange County, Calif., to the well-manicured bedroom communities outside Philadelphia and Minneapolis — the party is in danger of losing its House majority next week because Mr. Trump’s racially-tinged nationalism has alienated these voters who once made up a dependable constituency.https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/us/politics/republicans-trump-house.html?action=click&module=Top%...

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